Cornmeal

Polenta is often made at the last minute on the stove. Since this version is baked, it's a great do-ahead dish.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Toasted sesame seeds and sautéed green onions add zip to these moist muffins. Serve them on their own or with butter and honey.

This starter gets a double dose of cayenne — in the cornmeal coating for the shrimp and in the garlicky mayonnaise dip.

This recipe originally accompanied Corn Bread Succotash Stuffing . The corn bread also can be served on its own.

An especially easy baking powder version of the traditional yeast-leavened cornmeal and molasses bread. We've used buttermilk instead of water to give the loaf moistness and tang.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Frying tenderloins is like frying chicken: All recipes are fundamentally alike, but each has a twist, ranging from how the flour coating is seasoned to what the cooked meat ought to be drained on (paper towel? brown paper bags?).

Cornmeal may be either fine- or coarse-grained. Both work well in the following recipe; we used a fine-grained variety found in most supermarkets.

This moist sweet corn bread is a nice addition to breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

We got the idea for these pancakes from The Compound Restaurant in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where hot polenta-mascarpone pancakes were the perfect finale to a delicious dinner. They also make a terrific breakfast. Active time: 20 min Start to finish: 20 min

Tender Iowa corn was the inspiration for these terrific biscuits. They are best eaten the day they are baked; extras can be warmed up the next morning for breakfast or brunch. Be sure to serve them with plenty of butter.

Consider this delicious dish as a vegetarian main course, too.

Chicharrones are cracklings — the flavorful solids that are left over from making lard; the resemblance these little morsels of chicken bear to them accounts for the name "chicken cracklings." Chicharrones de pollo is a typically South American dish, variations of which can be found all over that continent and up into the Central American peninsula. The chicken is chpped up Chinese-style — bones, skin and all — into small pieces. Then it is usually marinated, rolled in wheat or corn flour, and deep fried — although sometimes it is not marinated, and sometimes it is fried without any breading at all.